WESTFIELD – Workers from the Department of Children and Families may have opened a new file after a four-year-old boy was found wandering on Miller Street Monday morning without adequate clothing for the 17-degree temperature.
Officer Joseph Maxton was dispatched in response to a 9:06 a.m. caller who reported he had taken a boy who was not wearing a jacket into his home when he found him shivering on the street.
Maxton found that the boy knew his age and his name but could not tell the officer his address, only indicating that he lived on Miller Street.
Maxton found a Miller Street address for a family with the same last name and reports that when he took the boy there he pointed to toys in the driveway that he said belonged to himself and his brother.
Maxton reports that there were no vehicles in the driveway and, although he knocked on the door repeatedly, there was no response.
However, a city worker happened by who said that he knew the family living in the house and told Maxton that the family included two boys.
Maxton had sent the man to his cruiser so the boy “could see a familiar face” when a resident returned home.
Maxton reports that the boy’s mother was visibly upset and began to shake when she learned what had happened. The 31-year-old woman told Maxton that she left her son in the house because “he had been giving her such a hard time” while she was preparing to take his brother to school.
She said that she had done an errand while she was away from home.
No charges were brought against the mother but a report was filed with the Department of Children and Families.
